Challenge courses are structures that allow a person, or a team to challenge themselves by participating in various events such as walking at elevated heights or climbing. These courses are also used to train military personnel. These courses are also used at recreational parks or other such centers that have go-carts and miniature gulf. It is common for people to wait in line to participate in the challenge course. Therefore increasing the speed of the flow of participants is an important feature of the challenge courses as well as increasing safety. The participants are usually performing some act at an elevated level between support structures. A harness cable secures the participant to a safety hook also called a moveable member. The safety hook or moveable member usually slides along cables substantially oriented horizontally as the participant walks on an “element” below, whereby the participant is secured to the moveable member or safety hook by a substantially vertically oriented harness cable. Therefore it is also an important feature to retain the harness cable to the moveable member without interruption.
Many problems with challenge courses center around the traffic flow and the detachment of the harness cable from the moveable member when the participant who is secured to the harness cable, is not secured to the moveable member, the participant can fall to the ground. When the participant walks along the element between the support structures, the participant is secured to the harness cable, which is in turn secured to the safety hook, which moves along the horizontally oriented safety cables. The cause of many of the flow problems are caused by factors such as releasing and re-attaching of the harness cable from the moveable member that takes place when the participant changes elements, usually at the support structure. For example, when the participant is completing one element, they stand on some fixed platform at the support structure. Here, the participant, if wishing to travel on another element, will remove the safety hook that is specific for that first element, and will attach a second hook, which is specific for the new element.
There exists a need to reduce the time to detach and re-attach the moveable members or safety hooks as the participants walk through the different elements.
Multiple embodiments of the system are disclosed herein. It will be understood that other objects and purposes of the invention, and variations thereof, will be apparent upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.